Deeplinks Blog posts about Copyright Trolls

Judicial decisions are starting to come fast and furious in the movie copyright troll cases – and the trend is mixed but promising for those of us who care about protecting due process.

The good news is that judges continue to recognize the fundamental flaws in these cases. In the Northern District of Illinois, for example, Judge Blanche Manning recently severed Millennium v. Does 1-800, effectively dismissing the case against almost every Doe defendant. The court also suggested that the suit had been brought in the wrong place:

UPDATE: The Court in OpenMind Solutions v. Does 1 – 2925 heard oral argument on April 11, 2011. At the end of the hearing — during which the judge expressed some initial concerns with OpenMind's attempt to lump the defendants into a class action — the judge requested that OpenMind and EFF submit briefs on the merits of the class action lawsuit. Those briefs will be due in two weeks; we will then wait for a ruling from the Court. In the meantime (as reported below), discovery remains stayed.

Last Friday, a judge in the Nevada federal district court patiently explained why fair use disposes of Righthaven's copyright claim arising from the republication of an entire news article by a nonprofit organization. The hearing was in one of the now-250 Righthaven copyright cases. A written order, which will help set a persuasive precedent for other copyright troll cases, will be issued later.

The hearing was in Righthaven v. Center for Intercultural Organizing. Righthaven sued CIO, an Oregon non-profit organization promoting immigrant rights, alleging copyright infringement of a Las Vegas Review-Journalarticle. Righthaven did not create the news article, but claims the right to sue based on an assignment from the LVRJ.

These have been some eventful weeks in the world of copyright trolling. Thousands of unnamed “John Does” in P2P file sharing lawsuits filed in California, Washington DC, Texas, and West Virginia have been severed, effectively dismissing over 40,000 defendants. The plaintiffs in these cases must now re-file against almost all of the Does individually rather than suing them en mass. These rulings may have a significant impact on the copyright trolls’ business model, which relies on being able to sue thousands of Does at once with a minimum of administrative expense. The cost of filing suit against each Doe may prove prohibitively expensive to plaintiffs’ attorneys who are primarily interested in extracting quick, low-hassle settlements.

When we said that Texas was no place to file suit if you want to bypass due process, we weren't kidding. Senior federal judge Royal Furgeson has "severed" thousands of Does in these and several other cases. (see below for sample order). Judge Furgeson is the same judge that ordered the plaintiffs in five cases to explain why the court should not appoint attorneys to represent the Does' interests.

In essence, these rulings mean that the plaintiff in each case must re-file against each Doe defendant individually, rather than attempting to sue hundreds (or thousands) of Does at once, something that may make these cases less lucrative for the lawyers hoping to turn copyright trolling into a business model.